In the prior art, various methods have been developed for displaying documents including ordinary word processors to display text documents, image viewers, web browsers, and other specialty viewers including Adobe Acrobat (and the like). Other prior art discloses methods and systems which allegedly disclose page turning simulations that attempt to simulate the turning of pages of an electronic document to appear as though the viewer is turning the page of an actual book. Such prior art methods include those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,053,762, 5,463,725, 5,233,332, 5,519,827, 5,625,420, 5,801,713, 5,900,876, and PCT application Nos. WO 97/22104 and WO 02/21307. The methods depicted in these references purportedly simulate the effect of paper page turning by either implementing a transformation of pixel image data in two-dimensional space using pixel processing hardware, or by attempting to simulate a three-dimensional projection into the two-dimensional space of the screen using arcs that lie in the same plane as the screen and using pixel compression and smoothing techniques to yield an impression of a page being turned in three dimensional space.
However, these prior art methods are not without limitations. For example, the hardware implementations used with these methods cannot adjust to changes in content format. This limits them to a single aspect ratio of material with which they can work. To that end, the methods and systems according to the prior art will require to be redesigned to accommodate new page and screen aspect ratios and resolutions.
Another problem is that the pixel compression algorithms of the prior art methods and systems do not accommodate larger page sizes and higher resolution when processing power remains constant. Moreover, the prior art methods and systems cannot be easily adjusted to simulate different types of paper and styles of page-flip animation, and cannot simulate a page that is bent as it is turned, which is more natural for thin pages such as those found in magazines and catalogs.